Sunday, October 30, 2011

Democrats move to the Right of Alan Simpson.

The Democrats on the 'super-committee' are following the typical pattern we've seen under Democratic leadership for at least the last decade. They've voluntarily moved their position on 'deficit-reduction' so far to the right that its now to the right of a proposal cooked up by ultra-right-wing former Senator Alan Simpson and Wall Street's Erskine Bowles.

Of course, one thing to realize is that these millionaire Democrats conceded nothing of their own. What they are 'conceding' is our money and the few parts of the US budget that actually benefit some Americans. And remember, these are the same millionaire Democrats who already took the Bush tax cuts for millionaires (ie, themselves) and the trillion plus dollars a year we spend on war and defense off the table.

The new deficit-reduction plan from a majority of Democrats on the congressional Joint Select Committee on Deficit Reduction (the "supercommittee") marks a dramatic departure from traditional Democratic positions — and actually stands well to the right of plans by the co-chairs of the bipartisan Bowles-Simpson commission and the Senate's "Gang of Six," and even further to the right of the plan by the bipartisan Rivlin-Domenici commission. The Democratic plan contains substantially smaller revenue increases than those bipartisan proposals while, for example, containing significantly deeper cuts in Medicare and Medicaid than the Bowles-Simpson plan. The Democratic plan features a substantially higher ratio of spending cuts to revenue increases than any of the bipartisan plans.

For those too young to remember, that's Ronald Reagan's economic theory. Cut spending to the bone and refuse to raise revenue. Today's Democrats are running Ronald Reagan's playbook.

Politics in this country is going to remain stuck in this constant pro-war, pro-wall street cycle until people finally wake up and realize that this bunch of Democrats is not the answer. Voting for a party that has given you Ronald Reagan's economic policy combined with Dubya's policy of declaring wars all over the world is not going to fix anything.

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